After CIA Director Ratcliffe's visit to Moscow, Donald Trump's preferred mediator duo Witkoff and Kushner traveled to Russia and Ukraine for talks. However, there have been no concrete results so far.

After negotiations in the Ukraine war were deadlocked for months, the USA launched a new mediation initiative in the last two weeks.

First, CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a surprise trip to Moscow on August 25th and 26th. TheNewsWord of the trip only spread after a U.S. plane Air Force was observed landing on the Russian capital. The CIA did not comment on the visit itself. Rather, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced to journalists that Ratcliffe had come for talks with Russian intelligence officials.

However, the CIA chief did not meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Quite the opposite to his predecessor William Burns. The then CIA director was received by Putin three months before the war in Ukraine began in November 2021. There are almost five years between the current and the last trip to Russia by the US foreign secret service.

However, the exact content of the current talks was not disclosed by either side. The British oneGuardiansimply pointed out that the CIA had negotiated prisoner exchanges with Russia in the past. The American oneWall Street Journaland the magazinePoliticoHowever, with reference to unnamed sources, reported that the CIA director had warned Russia against an attack on NATO allies. There was also speculation that the talks between Ratcliffe and his Russian counterparts focused primarily on the Iran war.

Trump's mediator duo in Moscow and Kyiv

However, there was more information, albeit little concrete results, about Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner's trip to Russia and Ukraine. The real estate entrepreneur Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Kushner will serve as the government's special envoy and chief negotiator in international conflicts during the US president's second term in office. During the current trip, they met with Putin in Moscow on Saturday for a conversation that lasted more than three hours. The Kremlin described this as useful. Oneagreementhowever, was not achieved.

On Sunday, Witkoff and Kushner went to Kiev, where they met with Ukrainian President Zelensky and his negotiating team. Security advisors from Germany, France and the United Kingdom also took part in the discussions at times. Zelenskyj said afterwards that the US envoys had brought several “subtle ideas” with them, but did not go into detail.

Apparently no breakthrough was achieved in Kyiv either. However, the mediator duo expressed hope for a resumption of direct or trilateral negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the USA. "I think we made great progress in Moscow. We discussed a number of new ideas and brought them here to Kiev. Both sides will have to make compromises. But we have all the ingredients at our disposal to achieve a result," Witkoff said at a meetingpress conferencewith Zelenskyj on Sunday evening.

During the state visit of the two US mediators, Putin also ordered a three-day ceasefire. However, just a few hours after their departure, they flewAccording to reports from Deutsche WelleRussian bombs again on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. At least two people are said to have been killed.

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De-escalation to get negotiations going?

Apparently, the USA's current diplomatic initiative is initially concerned with limited agreements on de-escalation, which are intended to expand the scope for peace negotiations. The US news siteAxiosCiting Zelensky, reported concrete US explorations for de-escalation between the two warring parties before winter. The Ukrainian president therefore expressed the assumption that Putin did not want to anger Trump before the US midterm elections in November. This opens a window for diplomacy.

The core political conflict between Russia and Ukraine remains unresolved even after four and a half years of war. This consists of the question of which areas Ukraine must cede to Russia as part of a peace agreement and what security guarantees it will receive in return. This is why the US government's attempts at mediation throughout 2025 failed, as the New York Times wrote in oneBackground articleat the turn of the year. Ukraine would therefore have agreed to give up around twenty percent of its territory. The USA has also accommodated Russia on the issue of Ukraine's NATO membership and a reduction in the size of the Ukrainian army.

Ukraine War: Everyday life in the war is shifting, but there is no end in sight

However, Russia insisted on the complete cession of Donbass, including the parts still held by Ukraine. It's not just about principles and symbolism: Zelensky and several European heads of state and government tried to convince Trump that the remaining third of Donetsk was not just an insignificant "strip of land" but a militarily important buffer zone. Control of this area would put Russia in a much more favorable position to threaten major Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv, Kherson, Odessa and Kiev. “From Donetsk,” said a Trump adviser, it was “like a long cow pasture to Kiev.”

The postVisits to Russia by CIA chief and Trump diplomats yield no resultsappeared firstperspective.